The Dead Yard (16 page)

"Seamus, wake up, they’re on strike. They’re refusing to budge," I told him with a kick in his
arse.

Seamus groaned, slapped at the flies on his ankles, and looked at me with annoyance.

"Why did you wake me? You total bastard."

"Now that we’re close the Portuguese are refusing to dig the final bit of the path. They think
it will bring down a rain of curses on them."

"You speak dago, tell them to get a fucking move on. Touched won’t stand for it."

"Why don’t you call Touched and tell him to come over here."

Worry slipped across Seamus’s face.

"Nah, he won’t like that."

"Well, you get them to bloody move, I’ve had it," I said and slumped down in the shade next to
the chemical toilet. Seeing me sit, the Portuguese all found places to sit too. Seamus lit a
cigarette.

"Ok, suppose I better take care of it. Help me out of this thing."

I helped him out of the hammock and he walked over to the Portuguese. I stood behind him.

"You won’t work?" he said to the lead rebel. The man shook his head.

"You’re fired."

The man stared at him.

"You’re fired. Get the fuck out of here. Translate, Sean."

I told him in Spanish that he’d been axed and someone translated my Spanish into Azorean
Portuguese. To further make things clear, Seamus slapped him in the head and kicked him off the
building site.

"Who else won’t work? You?" he asked, pointing at one of the youngest men on the crew. "You’re
fired too, get out of here. Anybody else?"

The rest of the men picked up their tools and got their backs into it. Seamus looked at me,
satisfied.

"That’s it, Sean. Break the will of the leaders and the rest fall into line. That’s the dago
mind-set all over. Now don’t fucking wake me again, or you’re on the chopping block
yourself."

An hour later. The boys had carved out two shallow ditches, three feet wide by ten feet long.
The bulldozer path was complete.

"Señor, por favor…"

I shook my head.

"Sorry, lads. But if the bishop has given the ok—" I was about to explain that this was no
longer God’s house when I noticed Samantha, ostensibly coming up from Plum Island beach carrying
an umbrella, wearing outsize sunglasses and a big floppy hat. She was sauntering past the
construction site and paying no attention to any of us. You could tell she was English: the last
thing this big and this white in Massachusetts was Moby Dick. She washed her feet with a water
bottle and walked to the car park at the lighthouse. No signal, no acknowledgment, nothing. But I
knew this wasn’t a casual beach trip. She hadn’t been to the sea at all. She’d wanted me to see
her, to let me know that something was happening.

She drove past in the big Mark 2 five minutes later, with the sunroof down, blaring "Like a
Virgin" from her car stereo.

It was a very un-Samantha piece of music. She, who hadn’t heard of Scooby-Doo, liked Madonna?
It made me think. Like a virgin…Of course.

"Touched for the very first time" was the second line of the chorus.

Jesus. Touched was up to something. Dan Connolly, who was a big Madonna fan, must have given
her the idea.

I grinned.

Maybe those eejits weren’t so dumb after all.

I’d have to find an excuse to go into Newburyport later.

But for now the job at hand. I climbed into the big yellow bulldozer, turned the key in the
ignition, and pushed the red starter button. The bulldozer growled into life. I lifted the
massive steel-toothed bucket to about three-quarters elevation and drove the machine down the
path that the Portuguese had cleared.

The church was a wooden single-story structure, simple, beautiful in a very un-Catholic,
Puritan kind of way. I edged the bulldozer gently into the porch and pushed with the grabber. The
entire edifice buckled.

The bulldozer had a fully enclosed cabin and I was wearing a hard hat but even so I ducked as
the roof wobbled, the back wall caved in, and the church began to fall to pieces with an enormous
crash. When the cross from the spire came tumbling down and smashed on the ground the Portuguese
howled a few incantations to the Holy Ghost and Seamus genuflected when he thought I wasn’t
looking. I reversed the bulldozer, lowered the grabber, and drove into the remaining wall and
support beams.

The site was leveled in under ten minutes. The Portuguese men crossing themselves and
muttering Ave Marias. No one on Plum Island seemed to care, no protests and no gawkers. I got out
of the cab and brushed the debris off my white T-shirt, cargo pants, and Stanley work boots.

However, through the spirals of dust I noticed that there was someone who
had
seen
and had come to see me. Aye, something was up.

"Well done, Sean," Touched said and offered me his hand. Touched must have been watching from
McCaghan’s house, which was about a quarter of a mile farther up on Plum Island’s Atlantic
side.

"Thanks, Touched," I said, trying out the nickname to see how it would play. He wasn’t fazed
at all.

"Gerry will be pleased. Hell of a job, we can work on building those houses now," he said with
a distracted air.

"Ok."

He put his hand on my shoulder and a gleam came into his eye. A gleam that could mean anything
on that handsome, generous, psychopathic, murderous face.

"But not you though, Sean."

"Not me?"

"I’ve been checking you out, mate," he said. "Checking you out. Got something special lined up
for you, if you’re up for it."

Checking me out? So that’s what Samantha was trying to let me know. He had accessed his buddy
on the Boston PD and run the files on Sean McKenna. Well, well, well.

"Something special? Will there be more money in it?" I asked.

"Could be."

"Ok, then. I’m in."

Short walk to Touched’s car. Me, Touched, Seamus. A big Toyota Land Cruiser that he’d
obviously just stolen because it was still full of toys, a box of diapers, and wipes.

Touched handed Seamus and myself a pair of gloves. We put them on without asking why.

I got in back. Kit sitting there, smoking a cigarette. She was also wearing gloves, black tank
top, black jeans, no bra. The nipples on her small breasts were erect because of the Land
Cruiser’s powerful air-conditioning.

"Hi," I said.

"Hello. We saw you, like, totally bring down that church. Dude, that was pretty awesome," she
said. "I didn’t know you could drive one of those things."

"One of my many hidden talents," I said.

Touched and Seamus got in the front.

"How’s your boyfriend, Jackie, I believe he had a bit of an accident?" I said innocently.

"Yeah, that graffiti board in the End of the State totally fell down on him while he was
peeing. He’s thinking of suing, you know?"

"Is that what happened?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he should sue, open-and-shut case, I would have thought."

"How do you like living on PI?" she asked, to change the subject.

"Nice place if you don’t mind getting eaten alive. The Pilgrim Fathers were on to something
when they decreed that no flesh should be exposed. Sound religious reasons, possibly, but
certainly practical common sense in the boggy, marshy coast of Massachusetts."

"The pilgrims didn’t come up here," Kit said.

Touched turned round to look at us.

"Listen, you two. Enough of the chitchat. This is serious. If you don’t want to go, now’s the
time to opt out," he said.

Kit shook her head, her eyes wide, slightly frightened, her chin jutting out with
determination.

"Might help, Touched, if I know what I was opting out of," I said.

Touched looked at Seamus, who nodded.

"What do you think? Is he one of us?" Touched asked.

"Seems ok to me," Seamus said.

"What I say in this car is totally between us, if you’re not interested, you keep your fucking
mouth shut and we’ll forget the whole thing, ok?" Touched said to me.

"Ok."

"Aye. Sean, I heard that you were lifted in Northern Ireland for attacking a police car. And I
heard that the peelers knocked the shite out of you. Heard you were a bit of a wee rebel when you
were a kid," Touched said cautiously.

"Where did you hear that?" I barked, trying to sound pissed off.

"Don’t fly off the handle, Sean, I don’t want to cause you any trouble, in fact quite the
reverse. I had to check you out. These are very difficult times that we’re living in. It’s quite
possible that Gerry is being watched by the cops or the FBI, although I think we might have heard
about it before now. But that’s neither here nor there. The thing is, Sean, I have a wee contact
in the Boston pigs and I got them to run you on the computer. I read about your past and I know
where your sympathies used to lie, and I want to know if you still feel that way?"

Kit looked at me, her gloved hand patting me on the leg. She smiled. Her eyes the color of a
glacial lake. Not a cold, uninviting glacial lake. More of a cool lake on a warm day. Let’s say
it’s summer in the Alps and you’re sweaty and hot from hiking and you—

"Sean, did you hear what I said?" Touched asked, shaking me out of my reverie.

"You want to know how I feel about the Brits in Ireland?" I muttered, snapping my head away
from those hypnotic peepers.

"Aye."

"I think the Brits should stick to their own country and get out of Northern Ireland. And if
the bloody Protestants don’t want to live in a united Ireland then they can fuck off back to
Scotland where they came from," I said with just enough but not too much passion.

Touched nodded and put the car into gear.

He accelerated away from the remains of the church and we drove over the metal swivel bridge
and off the island. To the left was the swampy Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, to the
right Joppa Flats and Newburyport Harbor. Touched lit a cigarette, began another little
speech.

"Sean, apparently you did wonders in Revere, but I have to see for myself. This is going to be
a test. This isn’t going to be your only test. But if you don’t do well today, you’re out.
Generous redundancy package, couple of handshakes, no hard feelings. If you do well, I’m going to
recommend you to Gerry. Simple as that. There’s going to be four of us. Me and Seamus will run
the show. You and Kit just shut the fuck up and do nothing. I’m not even sure I agree with having
Kit here but—"

"We’re not going to get into that again, Touched, like, come on," Kit said, interrupting him
angrily.

Touched coughed on his cigarette. If this was any other wee girl but Gerry’s daughter he
probably would have turned round and slapped her.

"Ok, Kit, keep your fucking hair on," he said and threw his fag out the window and angrily lit
another.

He put the radio on and flipped through the stations, looking for one playing country, not an
easy task in Massachusetts. Finally he dug one up on the AM band and, more relaxed, winked at me
in the rearview mirror.

The drive.

Nobody talking.

Touched singing along to the radio. The ocean on our left, North America on our right. Swamps,
mudflats, marshes. Kit looking out the window. Touched packing heat. Seamus, too. Slowly down
route 1A. Many places along the way with pull-offs, deserted little lay-bys. Easy for Touched to
stop the car with any kind of excuse. A play like this:

"I just need a quick piss," Touched says.

Suggests we all get out. I have to get out too, or it will look suspicious. As soon as I’m out
of the car, Touched checks the highway, looks left and right, pulls his piece, shoots me in the
belly to put me down. Shoots me in the head and then another one right in the eyeball to be on
the safe side.

Kit’s screaming. Seamus holding her back. He explains it to her or tries to. They search the
body but they don’t find anything. They fill my pockets with gravel, stones, anything really,
take me to the swamp and dump me in.

Kit gets in the car, sobbing, hysterical.

"Why, why did you kill him?" she asks.

"Fucking British agent, Kit," Touched says. "I could tell immediately. Your da thought it was
important that you were there to see me top him."

"Oh God," Kit says….

I looked out the window, waited for the car to slow, for the indicator to come on. But it
didn’t. We drove through Rowley, over the Parker River bridge, and down to Ipswich. Some of my
fear had gone, but the adrenaline pumping through me still kept me off kilter and alert.

"I’d like to tell you a little about what’s happening, Sean," Touched said from the front as
he tried to drive round a slow-moving RV.

"Tell away."

"First of all, we’re going to go get some ice cream and then we are going to go to a town in
New Hampshire called Derry. There’s two towns in New Hampshire right beside each other. One is
called Derry and one is called Londonderry. As you know, Sean, but Kit and Seamus don’t, back in
Ulster the Prods call Derry ’Londonderry’ and the Catholics call it ’Derry.’ So obviously
settlers from there came here and they couldn’t agree what to call their new town and so both
Derry and Londonderry are right next to each other. Interesting places, I was up there
yesterday."

So what? I was thinking but Touched came to the point.

"As a spite to the Protestants we are going to rob a bank in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Recon
on it for the last week. It’s 1950s America. One security camera. Rush in the morning, very slack
in the afternoons. Two part-time clerks and a manager. After we get our ice cream I am going to
give you all one more chance to back out. And that’s it. Ok?"

I nodded. Kit nodded. Touched looked at us in the mirror.

"By the end of the day, both of you are going to be men," Touched growled as he pulled into
the White Farms Ice Cream stand that Kit had pointed out the night of the hit on her da.

"All right, Seamus, you go up and get us four butter crunch with chocolate sprinkles. Here’s a
twenty, if she’s nice give her a two-buck tip, got that?"